of all things, does, proceeding in a circle according to nature, bring things to an end by a straight road."-IBID. de leg. 1. iv. c. 7. Plato, speaking of the first element of all things-rò ov, or ovoía, that which is likens it to "The bulk of a sphere that is a perfect circle on all sides, and possessing equal powers on every part from the middle, for there must needs be nothing greater or less on this side or on that."-IBID. Sophist. c. 32. A sphere, as well as a ring, is an emblem of eternity, which is a necessary attribute of self-existence; but Aristotle blames Zeno for representing God as a sphere, because figure implies materiality— "God being incorporeal, how can he be spherical ?” ARISTOT. de Zenon. Xenoph. et Gorg. c. 4. "The first mover continues in the enjoyment of the principle of life for ever. With us, certainly such a thing as this would be impossible, but not so with the first mover."-IBID. Metaph. 1. xI. c. 7. "God is a being that is everlasting and most excellent in nature, so that with the Deity life and duration are uninterrupted and eternal; for this constitutes the very essence of God."-IBID. c. 8. "In the city of Sais, an image of Minerva (whom they believe to be Isis), had this inscription over it :-- I am all that hath been, that is, and that will be; and no mortal has ever been able to unveil me.'"-PLUT. de Isid. et Osirid. c. 9. "The temple of Isis is called ISION, signifying the knowledge of that which IS." IBID. C. 2. "What is it really to be? That only Is which is eternal, uncreated, imperishable, and in which time can effect no change. The terms before, after, shall be, hath been, properly belong to time. It is not allowable to say of that which is that it hath been, or shall be, for these are merely approaches to, and departures from, that which cannot continue in actual and present existence. But we must confess that God is, and that, not with reference to time, but as being eternal and immutable, whom nothing can be before or after, past or future, older or younger. Being essentially one, his eternity is included in a present existence; the always in the now. And God alone can thus truly be said to be, having neither a past nor a future existence, having neither beginning nor end. By this name then, when worshipping him, we ought to salute and call upon him. The Deity is to be addressed by the name El-Thou art, because in Him there is no variableness or change. "The word E is an expression of admiration and reverence addressed to God as an eternal Being."-IBID de Ei apud Delph. c. 19, 20, 21. "The people of Thebais, in Upper Egypt, contribute nothing to the painting and pourtraying of such beasts as are honoured by the Egyptians, being of opinion that nothing which is subject to death can be a god. Their god, whom they call Cneph, as he was never born, so he shall never die."-IBID. de Isid, et Osirid. c. 21. EXODUS IV. 10. And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. "After the first chaos there was an incomprehensible light, which dispelled the darkness and put an end to all chaotic deformity, as the man with the slow tongue left it in writing."-LUCIAN. Philopat. c. 13. 11. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth, or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? "From the gods it is that we have received the gift of speech." XEN. Memor. 1. IV. c. 3. "The god Harpocrates of the Egyptians is not to be taken for an imperfect and infant god; but for the president of men's speech concerning the gods which is but imperfect and inarticulate, and the regulator or connector of the same, his finger upon his mouth being the symbol of taciturnity. Of all those things that are in man, there is nothing more divine than the gift of speech."-PLUT. de Isid. et Osirid. c. 68. 12. I will be with thy mouth. Telemachus, when on his way to the Court of Nestor, asks of Mentor :- Mentor replies: "Search for some thought thy own suggesting mind, Shall rise spontaneous in the needful hour." HOм. Odyss. 1. III. v. 22. "Eloquence is the greatest blessing which the immortal gods have given to mankind."-QUINTIL. 1. XII. c. 11. 21. I will harden Pharaoh's heart. Hector says to Achilles : "The furies thy relentless breast have steel'd, "What power above HOм. I. 1. XXII. v. 356. Has steel'd that heart ? "-IBID. Odyss. 1. XXIII. v. 167. The man whom Fortune and the Fates betray, Herodotus gives several instances of the extraordinary cruelty and ferocity of Cambyses. Croesus expostulated with him, saying— "Without any adequate offence you destroy your fellow-citizens, and put even children to death. If you continue these excesses, the Persians may revolt from you.' He adds "For my part I am satisfied that Cambyses was deprived of his reason." HDT. 1. III. c. 30, 38. 25. "No wickedness proceeds from any ground of reasoning.”—Liv. l.xxvIII. c. 28. Zipporah took a sharp stone. "The Egyptian embalmers make an incision in the side of the body with an Ethiopian stone, through which they extract the intestines."-HDT. 1. II. c. 86. "The Arabians, when making alliances, open a vein of the hand with a sharp stone near the middle finger of each of those who are about to contract." IBID. 1. III. c. 8. "The barbarians had long sharp finger-nails, with which they killed their fish and cut all sorts of soft wood, making use of sharp stones for those which were harder.” ARRIAN. Hist. Ind. c. 24. "Mutilated with a Samian potsherd."-MART. 1. It. Epig. 81. "The branches of the palm swell if pierced with steel, and the veins shrink and refuse to flow; they are therefore opened with a shell, or the splinter of a stone." TAC. Hist. 1. v. c. 6. "Incisions are made in the bark of the balsamum, either with glass, or else with a sharp stone."—PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. xII. c. 25. EXODUS V. 7. Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves. "He who makes bricks never has anything more than common clay with chaff, and stubble mixed with mud."-LUCIL. 1. IX. 15. EXODUS VI. 3. I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them. "I say that the highest of all the gods is IAO." ORPH. apud. Macrob. Saturn. 1. 1. c. 18. "Moses asserted that the god who is called by the Jews Lao, was the author of his laws."-DIOD. SIC. 1. I. c. 94. 12. And Moses spake before the Lord, saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips? Socrates says to Simias "With difficulty indeed could I persuade other men that I do not consider my present condition a calamity, since I am not able to persuade even you.” PLAT. Phodo, c. 35. EXODUS VII. 10. Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Aaron has been compared with Mercury. Both were Egyptians by birth. Mercury was the interpreter or messenger of the gods; and the rod which he carried as his wand of office, was twisted about with serpents. Enchanters are very generally represented with wands by which their wonders are effected. "Janus gave to Cranè a wand, 'twas a white one, by which she might be able to drive afar from every door all impending evils."—Ov. Fast. l. vI. v. 130. 11. Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers; now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. "There is another sect of adepts in the magic art, who derive their origin from Moses, Jamres, and Lotopea, Jews by birth, but many thousand years posterior to Zoroastre."-PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. xxx. c. 2. Moses is here numbered among the magicians of Egypt; the events in this chapter being remembered, probably, by tradition as a trial of skill in the magic art. Compare II Tim. iii. 8. 15. Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come. It is probable that the Egyptians considered it a necessary part of religion to purify themselves every morning by washing in the river. Their priests washed themselves twice every day; Chæremon says thrice. 20. And Moses and Aaron did so, as the Lord commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The peculiar significance of this plague may be understood from the following circumstances. The Egyptians honoured the Nile with a religious reverence. "To all rivers they pay extreme veneration; they will neither spit, wash their hands, nor throw any filth in any of them; and a violation of this custom may not happen with impunity."-HDT. 1. I. c. 138. "The Egyptians account their river Nile to be Oceanus, on whose banks the birth of the gods took place."-DIOD. SIC. 1. I. c. 12. "There is nothing so much honoured among the Egyptians as the river Nile." PLUT. de Isid. et Osirid. c. 5. "The Nile, the father and the saviour of Egypt."-PLUT. Symp. 1. VIII. qu. 8. "The Nile is the only source from whence the Egyptians obtain water for drinking."-PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. VI. c. 33. The Egyptians, and especially their priests, were particularly nice and delicate in their outward habits, and there was nothing they abhorred more than blood. They could not bear to come into contact with a foreigner, or even to handle his clothes; but to touch a dead body was an abomination, and required to be immediately expiated. Martianus Capella mentions that the priests wore sandals made of papyrus, to prevent any accidental pollution as they walked along. For these reasons they were continually making ablutions. "Their priests every third day shave every part of their bodies; they wash themselves in cold water twice in the course of the day, and as often in the night." HDT. 1. II. c. 37. These ablutions were rendered impossible, for "there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt," and the river, which was the object of so much superstitious reverence, was defiled. Prodigies of this nature were always looked upon as very fearful. Before the death of Sarpedon, "The weeping heavens distill'd A shower of blood o'er all the fatal field."-Hoм. Il. I. xvI. v. 459. "When Flaminius and Furius, the consuls, were leading an army against the Isubrians, the river which runs through the Picene was seen flowing with blood." PLUT. Marcel. c. 4. When Dido is about to die, "She pours in sacrifice the purple wine; VIRG. n. I. IV. v. 445. "The Alban water flowed in a bloody stream. This and other prodigies were expiated by the larger kind of victims. Orders were given for a supplication to be offered during one day, for the averting of misfortunes."—Liv. 1. xxvii. c. 11. As Pharaoh had caused the children of the Israelites to be cast into the Nile, it was a just retribution that the first plague should arise to the Egyptians from that river. Their blood may be said to have cried from the river for vengeance. 21. The fish that was in the river died. "The Nile produces otters, which the Egyptians venerate, as they also do the fish called lepidotus, and the eel. These are sacred to the Nile."-HDT. 1. II. c. 72. "The Egyptians worship two of the aquatic animals-the fish lepidotus, and the oxyrynchus."-STRAB. 1. XVII. c. 40. "A fish is held sacred at Hierapolis, and is never eaten."-Luc. de dea Syr. c. 14. "An Egyptian woman nursed a young crocodile, and the Egyptians proclaimed the woman blessed, as being the nurse of a god. Some of them also adored both her and the young crocodile. This woman had a son, who was now a lad, and of an equal age with the god, his playfellow, and with whom he had been nursed. The god, indeed, as long as he was imbecile, was mild, but when he grew large he manifested his nature, and devoured the boy. The miserable woman proclaimed her son blessed in his death, as having become a gift to a domestic god.”—MAX. TYR. diss. 38. While their deities thus perished and became corrupt, one of the principal sources of food for the poorer classes was destroyed. "The Egyptians live principally on fish, either salted or dried in the sun." "The Nile abounds with multitudes of fish of all kinds. Not only are there sufficient to supply the inhabitants, but an innumerable quantity is salted and sent abroad. No river in the world is more beneficial and serviceable to mankind than the Nile.” DIOD. SIC. 1. 1. c. 36. EXODUS VIII. 6. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt: and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. This evil, like the former, arose from that sacred river in which the Egyptians so much confided. Its streams, by these means, became a second time polluted and disgraced, to the utter confusion of their gods and priests. "The people called Autariats were forced by frogs bred in the clouds, which poured down upon them instead of rain, to forsake their country." 17. DIOD. SIC. 1. III. c. 30. "The inhabitants of a district in Gaul were driven from their country by frogs." PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. VIII. c. 43. Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. The Egyptians were very particular not to harbour any vermin, and considered it a great profanation of the temple which they entered if any animalcules were concealed in their garments. "The priests, every third day, shave every part of their bodies, to prevent any louse or any other detestable object from adhering to those who are engaged in the service of the gods."-HDт. l. I. c. 37. "The priests of Isis wear vestments of linen, which of all others are least likely to breed lice or vermin."-PLUT. de Isid. et Osirid. c. 4. "The Acridophagi, when they grow old, die in a most horrible manner; winged lice breed in their flesh, of different sorts and of horrid shapes. The plague begins at the belly and breast, and consumes the whole body."-DIOD. SIC. 1. III. c. 29. 24. And the Lord did so, and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies. The Egyptians had particular deities to remedy special evils: among them were several whose office it was to drive away flies. Many of the Grecian states, which were colonised from Egypt, also worshipped gods of this kind. At Elis Jupiter was reverenced as Apomyios, fly-disperser; and Hercules, in the same character, at Rome. It was to a god of this kind that Ahaziah sent when he had fallen through a lattice in his upper chamber and was sick. "He sent messengers, and said unto them-Go, enquire of Baal-zebul, the God of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease." Baal-zebul was the fly god; as is more plainly indicated in the Septuagint version. II. Kings I. v. 2. "The people of Elis invoke their God Myiagros when the vast multitude of flies are bringing pestilence upon them; the flies die immediately the propitiatory sacrifice has been made to the God."-PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. x. c. 40. |